Croteau 1

Lauren Croteau

Dr. McCarthy

UHON 1020

29 March 2017

Fair is Foul, and Foul is Fair: Mastering Opposites in Macbeth

Shakespeares Macbeth recounts the rise and fall of Macbeth, a Scottish noble who

commits horrible crimes in the name of ambition. He does so at the urging of three witches and

his own wife. Lady Macbeths and the witches influence over Macbeth mirrors that of the

women in the Jacobean court. By exploiting relationships with powerful men and gaining the Commented [1]: define what this is in the same
sentence
kings favor, women in King James court could advance their interests, despite their power

being contingent on men. The play centers around the acquisition of political power and

subsequently even familial relationships must be analyzed for the political power structures

inherent within them. Lady Macbeth acts as a failed mother figure to her husband; instead of

nurturing him she incites him to destroy the patriarchal order of the state by killing Duncan.

Failure to perform assigned gender roles such as Lady Macbeths failure as a mother figure and

Macbeths inability to father his new nation leads to each characters downfall. Once these

gender roles are reasserted with Macbeths masculine kingship and his wifes subordination and

disappearance, the Macbeths still do not succeed in their endeavors. It is only the androgynous

figures of Duncan, Malcolm, and the witches that are successfully powerful. Shakespeare's

subversion of Jacobean era gender ideology in Macbeth asserts that women are inherently Commented [2]: Honestly, I think you have all the
components for a solid thesis here. Work on making
phrasing stronger, instead of saying "examining" and
involved in politics due to their role as mothers, but successful and legitimate power can only be "analyzing," set up gender ideology in Jacobean
politics as your framework more directly ex./
exercised by one who has the androgynous characteristics of both mother and father. "Shakespeare's representation of Jacobean era gender
ideology in Macbeth reveals that..." or "Approaching
Shakespeare's Macbeth through gender ideology as
defined by Jacobian era politics shows..."
Commented [3]: Need a stronger thesis. Perhaps use
first-person.
 Croteau 2

The importance of progeny in Macbeth reflects the historical climate in which it was

written and emphasizes the importance of women in politics. King James was under increasing

pressure to marry and start producing heirs, all the more because he had shown no previous

interest in women (Young 108). Although he did not want to include women in his sexual or

political life, James did so out of necessary, begrudging dependence on women for power. Commented [4]: back this claim up

Macbeth, though already married, expresses the same anxiety about his lack of children: Upon

my head they placed a fruitless crown / And put a barren scepter in my grip, (III.1.61-2). The

difference between the two kings is that while James succeeded in producing an heir, Macbeth

never did. To counter this, Macbeth attempts to rid the world of the worm thats fled, who

could usurp his throne, an endeavor that embodies the futility entrenched in all of Macbeths

actions (III.4.29).The witches prophecy fates Macbeth to failure, a failure that the murderers

reaffirm by confessing that Fleance lives. His failure to create children and destroy usurpers like

Fleance makes Macbeth a failed parent and king. Men in the Jacobean court and in Macbeth are

dependent upon women to produce sons, giving women political power, and yet Macbeths

failure to kill those that endanger his kingship

Despite the Macbeths lack of children, Shakespeare takes pains to imagine Lady

Macbeth as a destructive mother (Williamson 160). Shakespeares emphasis on imagined

motherhood serves two purposes: to illuminate the political power motherhood brings, and to

demonstrate that Lady Macbeths violent, aggressive tactics have no place in motherhood. In the

Jacobean court, women relied on family members to establish ties and build power. Much like

the pressure on Macbeth to have a son, producing an heir and ensuring its survival was a critical

part of every aristocratic womans life (Payne 166). Lady Macbeth is heirless, though she

makes allusions to motherhood when trying to persuade Macbeth to murder:

 Croteau 3

I have given suck, and know

How tender tis to love the babe that milks me.

I would, while it was smiling in my face,

Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums

And dashed the brains out, had I so sworn as you

Have done to this. (I.7.54-9).

She threatens to violently destroy her own male progeny, and yet Macbeth encourages her to

bring forth men-children only; / For thy undaunted mettle should compose / Nothing but

males, (I.7.73-5). Her behavior and Macbeths response illuminates the paradox of the hyper-

masculine mother. Lady Macbeth cannot synthesize her duty as mother and her political

ambitions, asking spirits to take [her] milk for gall so that she may replace what can nourish

with that which can kill (I.5.47). Her forceful idea of motherhood and disdain for Macbeths

perceived femininity grant her power over her otherwise politically superior husband. Aside

from metaphorical motherhood, there is no mention of Lady Macbeths family except for

Duncans resemblance to her father, meaning her only hope to establish political power is

through her husband. Macbeths allusion to what greatness is promised thee excites Lady

Macbeth, for her husbands mobility would increase her ability to influence politics and shape

the world to her liking (I.5.12-13). The acknowledgement of Lady Macbeths influence recalls

the oft-overlooked historical role of women in politics, but her actions as a violent mother

represent a caricature of masculinity that enforce notions of a strict dichotomy between male and

female.

Although Lady Macbeth represents a failed mother figure, the play contains one

archetypal mother figure: Lady Macduff. She has given her husband an heir, a son, whom she
 Croteau 4

cares for even in the absence of her husband. Yet, the only mother and wife who fulfills her role

of childbearing lacks any political power, even the influence necessary to make her husband stay

by her side. Lady Macduffs plight represents the dual nature of motherhood: family was a

double-edged patriarchal sword for court women who at once gained participation in courtship

but simultaneously saw limitations brought on by family responsibilities (Payne 166). While

aggressive and violent Lady Macbeth sees the positive political effects of family, reserved and

gentle Lady Macduff sees the negative, responsibility-ridden side. He loves us not, she says of

her husband, but remains firm in her role as mother, for the poor wren, / will fight, / Her

young ones in her nest, against the owl (IV.2.8-11). Lady Macduff fulfills her responsibilities

even after abandonment and on the verge of death, but even so she cannot protect her son from

murderers. Both women die unhappy deaths, indicating that neither completely renouncing ones

gender nor completely accepting the opposite gender ensures success.

Similar to Lady Macduff representing a typical mother figure in contrast to Lady

Macbeth, Macduffs untainted masculinity sets him apart from Malcolm, Duncan, and Macbeth.

The courageous Macduff who was from his mothers womb / Untimely ripped, and thus free of

motherly influence acts as a paragon of masculinity (V.8.15-6). Macduff leaves his family,

knowing well how vulnerable they are, because he must rid himself of all womanliness and

motherly influence in order to become the man whose very maleness is the mark of his

exemption from female power, (Adelman 119). However, the actions and fate of the entirely

male figure do not propel the idea that an absence of femininity leads to perfection. Macduff

willingly accepts Malcolms lust and avarice despite the implications that these flaws would

hinder the heirs ability to rule because of his need for a legitimate heir to the throne to unseat

the tyrant (Williamson 151). Although he eventually expresses disillusionment with Malcolms
 Croteau 5

flaws and the fate of Scotland, Macduff shows himself willing to put up with several flaws

simply because Malcolm is the rightful heir. He professes a disdain for the feminine, seeing

women as mere bodies, willing dames to greatness dedicate themselves (IV.3.73-5). In

addition, the fantasy of male purity lacks historical precedent as men are born of women and

women exerted political influence even in the households of the elite where much of the

political negotiation over politics and patronage took place, (Crawford and Mendelson 346).

Macduff evades both his wifes political influence and the burden of female birth, allowing him

to fulfill a fantasy and restore patriarchal order to Scotland. Yet just like history, Macduffs life

was not entirely without feminine influence, for it was the female witches who predicted his

triumph over Macbeth. Although Macduff appears an unerring and purely masculine figure, the

tragic loss of his family indicates that masculinity alone does not guarantee success.

Shakespeares rejection of both embodying assigned gender roles and denying gender

roles reveals the value in reconciling traits both male and female. The witches famous line fair

is foul, and foul is fair, marks the beginning of a trend in Macbeth to divide things into binary

categories. (I.1.12). Philosopher Jacques Derrida asserted that All binary oppositions are

encoded with values and concepts of power, superiority and worth, (Sturken and Cartwright

111). Yet, when these binaries are proposed in Macbeth, it is hard to distinguish which object in

the binary holds power and prestige over the other. When the witches prophecy that Macbeth

will become Thane of Cawdor comes true, the astonished Macbeth wonders, This supernatural

soliciting / Cannot be ill, cannot be good, (I.3.131). The binary is good/ill, with good typically

being the object with power, yet Macbeth cannot decide whether his fortune is good or ill. The

events of Macbeths life cannot easily fall into either category, which makes them paradoxical

and perplexing. The disbelief Shakespeare articulates in the binary system does not have
 Croteau 6

historical roots. King James himself believed in binary roles when it came to husband and wife,

advising men that shee should be as ready to obey, as ye to command; as willing to follow, as

ye to go before, (James I 42). The discrepancy between historical maintenance of binary

systems and Shakespeares rhetorical defiance of said binaries subverts the dominant gender

ideology and power structures.

Despite Jamess belief in a gender binary in which women were inferior, he and his wife

mirror Macbeth and Lady Macbeth in their transgression of gender roles. In a surprising

inversion of gender roles, King James wanted peace, favored effeminate men, and prized

intellectualism and pacifism as traits of masculinity. Conversely, Queen Anna wanted war,

favored hawkish men, and prized action and aggression as traits of masculinity (Young 118).

Likewise, while Macbeth worries about the morality of killing Duncan, Lady Macbeth declares

when you durst do it, then you were a man, (I.7.49). While one values contemplation and

stagnation, the other values action and resolution. Both Lady Macbeth and Queen Anna resent

their husbands for their unmanly behavior. As women who can only exercise power through their

manipulation of men, it seems natural for the two to condemn and cajole their husbands when

they fail to fulfill the wives political agendas. Queen Annas persistent involvement in politics,

like Lady Macbeths, challeng[ed] boundaries between private sphere and public sphere,

indicating yet another disruption of the gender binary (Young 114). Women are to stay in the

private sphere dealing with domestic matters while men work in the public sphere dealing with

everything else. In the private sphere, women accepted responsibility for their families

survival; thus they sought food at affordable prices, they defended their livelihoods, and they

demanded peace and an end to the wars, (Mendelson and Crawford 346). Male political purity

could never arise because of the necessary intersection between the public and the private
 Croteau 7

spheres. More importantly, the historical ambiguity of King Jamess and Queen Annas gender

roles subverts the gender ideology that James himself professed. Shakespeare illuminates the

ambiguity of gender and goes a step further in asserting that ambiguity is in fact powerful in

Macbeth.

Lady Macbeth, after hearing the witches prophecy, does what she can to make both

herself and her partner more masculine to ensure success, yet she ends up creating the dichotomy

that sets her apart as inequal. Lady Macbeth advises her husband to look like th innocent

flower, / But be the serpent undert, (I.5.64-5). Macbeth, who Lady Macbeth has associated

with kindness and femininity until now, must resemble both the yonic symbol of the flower and

the phallic symbol of the serpent. However, Lady Macbeth questions her husbands virility when

he doubts their plan to murder Duncan and later when Macbeth sees Banquos ghost during the

banquet: Are you a man? (III.4.59). At his wifes contradictory urging, Macbeth renounces his

feminine aspects and any chance at androgyny, becomes a ruthlessly masculine king, and finally

falls as a tyrant. Unfortunately for Lady Macbeth, by making him manly she has guaranteed

that he will think of her as subordinate and unworthy of truly sharing power (Asp 162).

Macbeths inability to combine his feminine traits with the masculinity that his wife urges him to

pursue leads the couple to simply fall into their traditional gender roles. Shakespeare upholds the

dominant ideology of the time by ensuring Lady Macbeths untimely and unseen death and the

witches similar disappearance near the end of the play. Instead of erasing any female influence

in the latter part of the play, Malcolm supersedes the wicked mother, having already performed

her role and exerted her power, and Malcolms feminine traits subvert the absence of femininity

in the latter part of the play.

 Croteau 8

The androgyny of both Duncan and Malcolm, the two rightful kings in the play, further

suggests the inherent influence of the feminine in politics. Malcolm articulates the ideal traits of

a king as justice, verity, temprance, stableness, / Bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness, /

Devotion, patience, courage, fortitude, (IV.3.92-4). The first triplet of traits are androgynous,

the second feminine, and the third masculine. The first set of words are traits expected of any

good citizen, male or female. The second set of words are more feminine, as women are

encouraged to be generous and bountiful, inclined towards mercy. Lowliness and perseverance,

though androgynous traits, are longer and more embellished than the similarly androgynous

words devotion and fortitude, the latter possessing a brevity and forcefulness to them that

distinguish them as masculine. Duncan praises war and masculine feats, but he also exhibits

feminine traits, like the plenteous joys / Wanton in fullness, seek to hide themselves / In drops

of sorrow, (I.4.33-5). Like his father, Malcolm leads Macduff away so that they may weep

[their] sad bosoms empty, (IV.1.2). Crying both in Macbeth and outside of fiction denotes

sensitivity and femininity. Even in death, Duncan is an absent corpse, never visible on the stage,

amplified symbolically by its very invisibility, and by its assimilation of both male and

female principles, (Zimmerman 323). It is through this androgynous corpse that Macbeth and

Lady Macbeth get their power, yet they fail to cohesively embody such traits and so fail to

remain in power. Although Duncan dies and transfers his androgynous power to his killers,

Malcolm fills his fathers place by expressing more masculinity to balance out his femininity,

telling the distressed Macduff to dispute it like a man, (IV.3.220). Duncan lacked the explicit,

curt manliness his son expresses, a lapse of androgyny which explains his unfortunate fate.

Macduffs reaction to the virtuous Malcolms lies shows the heirs power to harmonize dissonant

elements: Such welcome and unwelcome things at once / Tis hard to reconcile, (IV.3.138-9).
 Croteau 9

Duncan and Malcolm are both male and their reigns could symbolize the necessity of patriarchal

male power, yet Macbeth too is male, indicating that the key to kingship requires one to healthily

embody both male and female traits.

In addition to the androgyny of the kings, the androgyny of the witches grants them

significant power. Upon meeting the witches, a perplexed Banquo proclaims: You should be

women / And yet your beards forbid me to interpret / That you are so, (I.3.45-7). The first thing

he notes is their androgyny, signifying its importance and its deviation from the norm. Likewise,

Macbeth first observes so foul and fair a day (I.3.38). He creates a binary by juxtaposing foul

and fair, yet he experiences both of these opposite ideas in tandem. His paradoxical words

demonstrate the witches power in combining two things that should be diametrically opposed. It

is the equivocation of the fiend[s] that demonstrate the political influence of witches who have

both the power to know fate and to compel Macbeth to be active in his fate (V.5.43). The

witches prophecies and doublespeak make Macbeth both confident and fearful, both reassured

and confused. Bryan Lowrance claims that, based on the Captains description of Macbeth at the

beginning of the play, he is a figure of heroic singularity and unity. But after he hears the

Sisters prophecy, the duality they represent rapidly starts to infuse and inflect his own

consciousness, (831). Macbeth finds their duality, or androgyny, confusing and hard to

reconcile, leading to his muddled mind and murderous actions. The presence of evil androgynous

figures in addition to the righteous kings implies that Shakespeare does not see androgyny as

necessarily good or evil, but instead appreciates its ability to combine two opposite ideas as an

indication of power.

Progeny and parenthood are significant themes in Macbeth, and the man who becomes

king is notably the only surviving son in the play. The strict gender binary embodied in the
 Croteau 10

Macduffs and later replicated in the Macbeths leads to spouses who do not communicate and do

not have heirs. The only rightful kings in the play express both feminine and masculine

characteristics that allow them to join disparate elements together. The witches, arguably the

most politically powerful beings in the play due to their ability to predict fate and manipulate

mortals, radiate androgyny and reconcile binary opposites. Despite this androgyny, the play

refers to them as sisters and they are coded as women. Theirs and Lady Macbeths influence in

politics, Macduffs extreme efforts to escape feminine influence, and the consistent focus on

heirs and progeny born of women emphasize the inescapable power of women in politics. The

male androgynous characters create peace while the female androgynous characters create chaos,

implying that even though women do have power, perhaps they should not. Though

Shakespeares Macbeth does not ooze feminist ideology, it certainly subverts the dominant

gender ideology of the time and brings attention to the role of femininity in power dynamics and

politics.

Works Cited

Adelman, Janet. Born of Woman: Fantasies of Maternal Power in Macbeth.

Shakespearean Tragedy and Gender. Ed. Shirley Nelson Garner and Madelon

Sprengnether. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996, pp. 105-134.

Asp, Carolyn. Be Bloody, Bold and Resolute: Tragic Action and Sexual Stereotyping in

Macbeth." Studies in Philology 78.2 (1981): pp. 153-169.

James I. Basilicon Doron. King James VI and I: Political Writings. Ed. Johann P. Somerville.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994, pp. 1-61.

Lowrance, Bryan. Modern Ecstasy: Macbeth and the Meaning of the Political. ELH,

79.4, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 2012, pp. 823-849.

 Croteau 11

Mendelson, Sarah and Patricia Crawford. Women in Early Modern England 1550-1720.

Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998, pp. 346-430.

Payne, Helen. Aristocratic Women, Power, Patronage and Family Networks at the

Jacobean Court, 1603-1625. Women and Politics in Early Modern England, 1450-1700.

Ed. James Daybell. Farnham: Ashgate, 2004, pp. 164-180.

Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. Ed. Stephen Orgel. New York: Penguin Books, 2000.

Sturken, Marita and Lisa Cartwright. Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual

Culture. New York City: Oxford University Press, 2009, pp. 111-138.

Williamson, Marilyn L. Violence and Gender Ideology in Coriolanus and Macbeth.

Shakespeare Left and Right. Ed. Ivo Kamps. New York City: Routledge, 2015, pp. 147-166.

Young, Michael B. Queen Anna bites back: Protest, effeminacy, and manliness at the

Jacobean court. Gender, Power, and Privilege in Early Modern Europe. Ed. Jessica Munns

and Penny Richards. Harlow: Longman, 2003, pp. 108-122.

Zimmerman, Susan. Duncans Corpse. A Feminist Companion to Shakespeare. Ed.

Dympna Callaghan. Malden: Blackwell Publishers, 2000, pp. 339-358.